A Fire in the Night
by MyRibbonsRed
Summary: Hannah has been on the run for months. But she can't run from her demons much longer. Does an unlikely stranger hold the antidote for her death wish? My take on a Season 3 Daryl/OC. Rated M for gore, language, sexual content at some point .
1. Fire in the Night

_This is my first WD fanfic. I wanted to weave in a new character (and possibly some romance) while staying as close as I could to the dialogue, action, and pace of the show as possible. In this version, however, I had Carol get lost in the woods at the end of Season 2 instead of Andrea. I've never been much of a fan of Carol. Sorry if this annoys you. _

_This is my take on Season 3. Some of the events follow the comics (though pretty loosely). _

_Let me know what you think. _

_By the way, I don't own any of this. _

* * *

It was almost funny - I used to love the night. Night meant being out of work. It meant clubs, and friends, and dancing, and drinks. It meant sex with my boyfriend. I loved the night sky - how it made a great bowl over the city, though the stars were were dim over Washington, D.C., to be there were always more to be discovered, over the horizon... The sky just went on, full of possibility.

Now the night just meant death. It shrank my life and sanity to the point of a flashlight or headlights, and that tiny illumination of my minuscule world only served to draw death toward me in an unknown quantity. One walker? Three? Twelve? Fifty?

That was why I was I was almost alarmed when I saw the firelight leaping around a tiny campsite several yards off the highway where the old Mazda 626 I'd stolen had broken down. I'd been on my way to Atlanta. Kevin had been dead almost a month now, and then Amanda, and even Sarah just four days earlier at a gas station. I'd thought about ending it after that. Thought long and hard. I had watched everyone I loved die in front of me; I had even killed one of them myself. I had watched the whole world burn down around me. And I knew I couldn't get very far on my own, not when even sleeping put my life at risk. We just aren't wired to endure that kind of stress.

But I had promised her. Promised that I would make it to the CDC. How could I break that kind of promise? And if there were an answer anywhere for what was happening, it would be there.

Only it wasn't.

As I approached the firelight I heard a chorus of guns cocking. I threw my hands up in the air.

"I'm not armed! I'm alive! I'm alone!"

"Come into the light. Slowly," a male voice commanded.

I edged forward through dead leaves, making as much noise as I could.

"I'm alone, I swear." I moved forward into the firelight, stunned at seeing so many women, and even a child. They had made camp in the ruin of an old stone building, semi-enclosing the fire on three sides. "There's so many of you." I breathed.

"Less now than there were," said the man with the beretta aimed at me. He looked as tired as I felt, and needed a shave.

"I'm sorry, it's just - I haven't seen so many people in months." Not counting the guys in South Carolina, of course. But then, I didn't count them. And neither would anyone else, anymore.

"Are you really alone?" asked the white-haired man with a shotgun. I noted his suspenders and his age, and wondered how the hell he'd lasted this long.

"Yeah." My hands fell down to my sides. "My sister and I... we were headed to Atlanta. To the CDC. I'm- I'm Hannah," I finished lamely.

They all seemed to trade looks. "The CDC is gone," the man with the beretta said. He lowered his gun.

For a moment I wondered if I'd heard him right, looking around at the other faces glowing in the firelight, the ends of their guns guns also dropping toward the ground. Grim looks confirmed the statement. I sank down into the wet leaves, my mother's .38 falling out of the back of my jeans. What now? Was there any point? Any point at all in going on?

"Thought you said you wasn't armed," a narrow-eyed man with a thick country accent said from the far side of the fire, wielding a crossbow. He looked like something out of _Deliverance_. His weapon was the only one still trained on me, right at my forehead.

"I'm not. Used the last of my ammo four days ago." My hands clenched at the memory. "Wanna check?"

"Just great. Another mouth t'feed," snarled the redneck, jerking his chin toward me.

I gave a dry laugh. "That's one thing I'm not. My parents' neighbors were mormons -had two years' worth of food in the basement. They had the right idea, you know? I still have a ton of it in my trunk."

They just stared at me.

"Wanna check?" I repeated.


	2. What's Not to Love

_I don't own WD or any of the characters therein. _

* * *

An hour later, after introductions and some help unloading some of the food from the car, I sat watching as the others finished eating out of my tins of honey, chicken, tuna, and yams, as sated as I'd been in two months, staring into the fire, basking in the warmth of so many other human beings. I watched the firelight jump and reflect off the faces of the tired people encircling it. A light in this terrible darkness... For so long it had been just the four of us, and then finally just me and Sarah. It occurred to me that I wouldn't be breaking my promise to her if the CDC was gone. But my ammunition was gone, and it had to be a shot to the head. I found my gaze lingering on the pistol holstered on the hip of the man who seemed to be the leader, Rick. It looked pretty inviting, to be honest. Just a squeeze, and it would be over. Just one shot.

Did I still want that? Had finding these people changed anything?

I looked around the campfire at my new companions: the dark-haired woman, Lori, snuggled into Rick's shoulder, her arm wrapped around her son, who was on his second helping of canned pudding; the old man, Hershel, speaking in quiet, soothing tones to his daughter Beth, who seemed distraught; next to him his other daughter Maggie was curled up next to the asian guy in the ball cap- I tried to remember his name from the round-robin of introductions. Greg? That didn't sound right. The dark one, T-Dog, was moving through the canned chicken like it was his last meal.

It almost seemed normal, except for what an unlikely group it would have been, before. And seeing so much affection after so many weeks of pain was having a near opiate-like effect on me.

The guy in the ball cap must've seen me looking at them, because the next moment he caught my eye and asked, "So where are you from?"

My stomach knotted.

"D.C." Everyone's heads came up. I wouldn't have expected less. If you're meeting a refugee from the nation's capitol, there's shit for hope, right?

"You got all that way down here on your own? In that p.o.s.?" The redneck-Daryl-asked, pointing a sticky thumb toward the dark in the direction where the broken-down Mazda was. He'd helped me carry some of the food back to the fire.

That caught me off guard. Was that why they all looked surprised? Because I'd gotten so far? "No," I forced out, staring at the ground. "There were four of us when we started in my parents' SUV. And now I'm here, by myself. In that p.o.s." I looked up, locking eyes with him, challenging, though I didn't know why. Suddenly I felt the need to beat on something.

But instead of bristling, he looked at me with what seemed dawning admiration. "Damn, girl. Awful long way for you to get in this mess."

I smiled. "Wearing leather helps." I patted the heavy motorcycle jacket next to me on the log. Once it had been white; now it was splatted with mud and blood. Though the days had been sweltering, this was the first time I'd felt safe enough to take it off in weeks. My filthy long sleeve henley-also once white-hung on me grey and over-loose; I must have dropped another few pounds in the last few days. I hoped I didn't smell as bad as I looked.

He popped another wedge of canned yam into his mouth. "You been on your own long?"

"Just a few days." I dropped my gaze to the fire. I wasn't about explain how I'd used up the last of my ammunition putting bullets through the skulls of the walkers who had gotten hold of Sarah at the gas station; how I'd had to wait for her to open her eyes again; how that blank, milky stare on my sister's face was seared like a brand into my memory forever. Or how, for want of bullets, I'd had to bury the little tomahawk my father had given me on my 15th birthday in her skull to put her back to sleep. But then, I'm sure they knew. I'm sure it had been the same for them.

"We're glad you're here," said the blonde woman with the shearling vest next to me.

"I bet you are," I grinned back humorlessly. "Got you stuffed with canned yams and pudding. What's not to love?"


	3. That's Just Living

_Hey, did you know? I don't own these characters. _

* * *

After the meal the others began settling in for sleep, curled up around the fire. I stood and climbed the steep slope where Rick stood guard, his back to the camp, facing out toward the trees and a man-made reservoir to the north. He turned as I approached.

"You should try to get some sleep. We'll take turns on watch." I shook my head.

"I slept pretty late today." The truth was that I hadn't slept for three days after Sarah died; I'd finally passed out in my car around twilight the evening before and slept through until the midday sun was cooking me inside my heavy jacket. Would that have been fourteen hours? Sixteen? I had known I wouldn't make it very much further, on my own and too terrified to sleep.

When Rick spoke again, his voice was so low I had to lean in to hear him. "Hannah, you've been headed southbound on this highway, haven't you?" I nodded. "Have you seen anything -anything at all- that you think we could make secure?"

"Secure?" I didn't follow him; that word had disappeared from my vocabulary.

"A military base, or a school - something with walls, or a fence, where we could hole up, and post guards, and be safe?"

"Well there's that prison up the road," I said slowly.

His eyebrows went up. "What prison? Where?"

"Well I guess it's about two or three miles from here - not on this road, though. You've got to take 441 north to get to it. But it's got to be overrun," I added quickly. Was this guy out of his mind? That was the last place I'd want to be - there might be thousands of those things caged up in there. Just passing it on the road had freaked me out.

"Doesn't matter," he said, looking out over the water. "We have to try. At least scout it out. In the morning we'll just take a walk." He turned back, dipping his head, and met my eyes, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Thank you, Hannah."

The gesture reminded my so strongly of my father that I couldn't respond. I just nodded dumbly and walked away toward the water, swallowing at the pain in my throat and trying to force the tidal wave of grief back into that steely box I kept locked in the deep in the darkness. There was no time for that.

I don't know how long I stood like that for, my arms wrapped tight around my ribcage, trying to breathe, to contain myself, staring at the shifting, uncertain reflection of the moon in the moving water. It was quite a beautiful night, actually. A night I would have loved in my other life: the moon was brilliant, just a few days away from being full, and the sky was overflowing with stars. I supposed there would be a lot more beautiful nights from now on - no more city lights to dim them, no more exhaust and smoke to cloud them.

I'd take the smog any day of the week.

I heard a soft scraping sound, and turned. A few feet away, Daryl was hunched over on a log, whittling down a sapling, his crossbow leaning against his leg. How long had he been there for? Had he been doing that all this time? The possibility that my senses could be so dull scared me.

I turned to go back to camp, and stared for a moment at the sleeping figures around the fire. No way was I going to be able to sleep anytime soon.

I sank down on the log next to Daryl with a sigh.

"You know, it's hard to believe that it was only a couple of months ago I was pissed at my boyfriend for forgetting to pick up dog food on the way home."

He glanced over, one eyebrow raised, and went back to shaving.

"We had this beagle puppy." I smiled into the darkness. "Thing was about as bright as an umbrella and yapped incessantly. I hated it. But... we were out one day, on his birthday, and he begged me to let us take it home. But he never really took care of it. Peed everywhere. He never did get it trained. Drove me just crazy. And then he always forgot the food. I remember wondering if I really wanted to have kids with a guy who couldn't keep his own dog fed."

There was a strange relief in hearing my own voice, that there was something coming out of my mouth that wasn't a scream. Even if Daryl didn't respond. He didn't really seem like the type to talk unless he had something to say, anyway. But the pain edged back a bit - it was like cold water in a parched throat to just sit next to someone, and ramble. I listened to the crickets chirping and the quiet sound of Daryl's knife on the wood for a moment. Somewhere nearby an owl hooted.

"We didn't have any problems. That's something I hate about all this. Makes me think about much we had, and never appreciated. We had food, people we loved... shelter. Safety. And all I could think about was the things I didn't have. How my car was old. How my friends from college had gotten better jobs than I had. My boyfriend absentminded and unmotivated. You know when I came back for him that day, I found him in the apartment. Dead, of course. He'd chewed that dog near in half. Guts all over the carpet. Someone had come along and put my silver cake knife through his right eye. And now..." I trailed off, staring at the sliding, warping moon in the water. That I could talk so easily about Mark told me just how much I'd cared about him. I couldn't imagine saying a word about Sarah, or even Amanda.

Daryl still seemed to ignore me.

"Sorry. It's just that I haven't talked to anyone in awhile. I'll- I'll leave you alone." I stood up.

"Hasn't changed so much," he muttered, without looking up.

I jerked. "What?"

"You were unhappy then. You're unhappy now. What's the difference?" He shaved another long strip from the sapling. I dropped back down onto the log.

"How can you say that? Everything's changed. Everything's gone. What do you mean, what's the difference?"

"You think any o' those people were happy 'fore this?" He waved his knife toward the exhausted bodies below us, flickering in the light. "They got a purpose now. They wanna survive. Bet you wanna survive, too."

I wondered if that would be a winning wager.

"No. That woman Andrea, she told me she was a civil rights attorney before this. That's purpose. Survival- that's just living, drawing air. And what's the point in that, if all it means is pain?"

He snorted, head still bent to the work at hand.

"Yeah she was. Drove some fancy car. Lived in some big house. Sure she was doing right by the little man, I bet. If she'd passed me on the street shed've thought I was dirt, too. And now I've saved her life 'bout a half dozen times, and she's got me outta a scrape or two. This thing, well. It's the big equalizer." He lifted the stick-I realized it would be an arrow- up to his face and squinted down the shaft, checking the smoothness.

"That's all you can think about? The whole world has disappeared before our eyes and what you see is the Marxist dream's come true, that... that social classes have collapsed? Don't you have any bigger problems than that?"

His knife stopped. He looked down at the ground, and then up at me, eyes narrowed. Dirt lined the creases of his face, and covered his impressive biceps below the shredded seams of his sleeveless flannel. His dark hair was plastered to his temples in little greasy spikes. I wondered what I myself would have made of him, in that other life.

I thought for a moment he wouldn't answer, or perhaps just walk off.

"You believe in God?"

I think my jaw must have given slack, I was so surprised. I'd given God up for dead about a month and a half ago. I would've thought everyone else had, too. He turned toward me on the log, just a foot or so away, half his face illuminated by the moonlight, the other in shadow. I was uncomfortable being so close to a stranger after so long, and strangely conscious of my matted, dirty hair pulled up into a messy knot, the dark roots that had grown out well over an inch under the blonde. I glanced down, irrationally wondering how much dirt was caked beneath my fingernails.

"Ain't you stopped to think about what this is? If we're livin' through the end times, or the rapture, or whateverthehell they used to preach in sunday school, I think we're doin' pretty good to still be alive. Means maybe someone's lookin' out for us. An' I bet you 'precciate every breath you draw a helluvalot more than you did when you were worryin' 'bout dog food. Bet you'd have kids with that sorry boyfriend o' yours in a heartbeat, right now."

I know it's not polite to stare, but I couldn't do very much else in that moment. I felt a little ashamed- Daryl Dixon was a book I had judged by its rough, redneck cover. But although his argument surprised me, I was more surprised that he seemed to be telling me to keep my chin up.

"You... you're telling me to look on the bright side? Of the fucking armageddon?"

He turned back to the stick he'd been working on, turning it in his lap. "Naw. 'Course not. Seen my best friend an' his wife an' kids get taken apart two months back. Weren't nothin' I could do to stop it. Ain't no bright side o' that. Not for them, leastways."

"So what then?"

"How the hell should I know, you dumb depressed cooze? I'm sick to death of everyone feelin' so sorry for themselves. Saw the way you was lookin' at Rick's pistol like it was your long lost friend. You wanna jump ship? I'm sure Andrea will lend you her gun."

The little explosion stung-he'd struck the heart of it. Was I that transparent? But I wasn't about to share any of that with this hostile stranger. Instead I attacked.

"Short little fuse you got there. Not too used to people asking your opinion, huh?"

He opened his mouth to speak, and I braced myself for another misogynistic slur. Then suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as I heard a shuffling in the leaves behind us. In a second I was up, yanking the small tomahawk from my boot as I pivoted. A moment later it was sunk up to the haft in the forehead of the hulking walker several feet behind us. The stained, ruined remains of a uniform hung from its frame- a prison guard? Half the flesh from its face was gone, a long strip of rancid muscle swinging from its jaw. It swayed for a moment, and then simply toppled forward like a felled tree. The whole thing happened so fast, and so quietly, that it hadn't even roused the camp. I heard the soft click of a gun hammer and turned to see Rick slowly holstering his pistol several feet behind us.

I stepped over the log and into the gloom to retrieve my little axe. At least I didn't have to worry about my reflexes slowing.

"Think I'm starting to get how you made it this far," Daryl drawled behind me in the darkness.

Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. For a total A-hole.


	4. All Caged Up

"This is fucking crazy," I whispered to no one in particular.

I was bent nearly double behind the curving brick prison sign next to the entrance with Rick, Andrea, T-Dog, and Daryl, sweat trickling down my back into my leather jacket under the morning sun. We had cut the engines up the road and moved slowly toward the prison in a single file. They hadn't wanted me to come, but hell if I was going to wait like a ham on a platter for the potential horde of walkers these idiots might set loose. Besides, Rick had reloaded my little revolver. Not that six bullets were going to do much for me here. As I peeked around the corner of the sign toward the double ring of chain link fences surrounding the prison and the several dozen walkers in the yard beyond, my stomach began to flip. I hadn't wanted to sit like a duck at camp, but I was realizing that I really, really, really didn't want to be here, either.

"Thought you had balls of steel or something," Daryl taunted in my ear.

"And I thought _you_ said you wanted to live," I shot back.

He shrugged. "Don't mean I'm 'fraid to die, though."

"Okay, there's the gate," Rick whispered, pointing toward the enormous rolling section of fence twenty feet away. It was just to let vehicles through - the yard was fenced closed on either side of the road, which was a relief as the gate was half open and leaning back crazily at a forty-five degree angle. The inner ring of fence on both sides contained the walkers. The space between the fences -a span of about fifteen feet or so- seemed to be clear. Rick passed out heavy gloves and a set of kitchen knives and explained what to do.

A half hour later I found myself trying to mimic the apparent calmness of the others as I stood in the grassy alley between the fences, stabbing my knife through the fence and into the eyes of the walkers massed against it. I was terrified the fence would buckle under the sheer weight of them. But it didn't, and it took much less time than I'd expected to clear the yard this way.

"Hell of a way to spend your Sunday morning, huh?" Andrea was on my left, sliding her knife into the empty eye socket of a walker on the other side of the fence.

"Is it Sunday?" Asked T-Dog from down the line. He was holding a wadded bandana to his face with his free hand. I couldn't blame him; the stench was just about unbearable. I was fighting to keep my breakfast down.

"Think that's the guy my brother used to get his meth from," said Daryl from my right, squinting down at a tattooed corpse that had just fallen onto the mounting pile of bodies.

"Alright, everybody just stay alert. We're almost done over here." Rick sounded strained. I couldn't hold that against him, either- it was hard keeping my back to the throng of walkers on the other side of drive, beating and gurgling against the chain link fence.

By mid-afternoon we had cleared the other side as well, and Rick cautiously opened the inner gate on that side. T-dog walked back toward the main entrance where he'd left a can of gasoline, while we began dragging the bodies away from the fence to burn.

I was thirty or fifty yards away from the others, next to the brick wall of the prison, trying to drag a mangled, headless body toward the pile when the steel door next to me burst open. I dropped the corpse and wheeled, trying to grab for my tomahawk, but I was too slow. Before I could blink the thing was on me, all rotting hands and teeth, and I heard Andrea scream behind me as rancid jaws bit down with blinding force into my forearm.

Panic exploded like dynamite in my chest and mushroomed into my throat. Instead of trying to shake the thing off-it might go for my face if I did-I wriggled backward and continued to fumble at my leg. After what seemed like hours, I finally got a grip on the wedge of my tiny axe sticking out of my boot, and I swung it in an arc over my head to plant it deep in the thing's skull. Its body went slack and we both sank to the ground.

I stared at the sky, gasping for air, eyes squeezed tight against the flood of tears I was not about to allow.

"Another one!" T-Dog shouted from behind me.

I scooted back in the grass again as another dead man staggered out the door not three paces away. I jerked at my axe, but it was lodged tight in the skull on the ground. Where was my gun?

There was a whoosh of air above me, and the dead man fell forward, Daryl's arrow gone clear through its skull.

I fought down the urge to sob.

"You alright?" Daryl asked, jogging up.

I nodded, still panting, showing him my slimy leather sleeve, trying to put a clamp on my terror. "Sure. Now we're even." I offered up my hand in a silent request for help up.

He reached down and hauled me to my feet in one swift move. "How you figure?"

"Well, I saved your ass last night," I said with a grunt, wrenching the tomahawk free as I held the skull with my boot. "Only fair that you return the favor, huh?"

He glared at me. "You think I couldn'ta put that walker down quick enough last night? You just got it first."

Since this all had started I had made a discovery about about myself: I get mean when I'm scared. It had pissed Sarah off to no end. And just then I was trying not to turn into a puddle on the filthy grass of the prison yard.

"Whatever. I'll just remember to be twenty minutes away from the next one, so you'll have time to cock that ridiculous bow."

I stomped off toward the others, desperate to get the hell away from the gaping dark door.

"Hey! I jus' saved your damn _life_, girl!" Shouted Daryl from behind me.

I ignored him, still fighting back tears. Why had I come out here, anyway? These people were going to get me killed.

_This isn't going to last,_ a little whisper drifted through my head. _You can't keep it all on lockdown like this forever. You're going to break._

I ignored that voice, too.


	5. Bad Memories

_I still don't own these characters and cannot be held responsible for their actions. _

* * *

"That girl's hard as nails," said T-Dog that night, nodding in my direction. We were sitting around the fire, eating another round of canned food from my trunk. Daryl sat eating behind the others, glaring at me every so often.

"Yeah she is," Andrea shook her head, a green bean between her fingers. "When I saw that thing clamp down on your arm I thought you were dead for sure."

I smiled. I was exhausted. I would sleep tonight, whether I wanted to or not. "Like I said. It's all about the leather."

"You sure it didn't get you anywhere?" Maggie asked, brow furrowed. It didn't feel like well-intentioned concern for me. She seemed nervous.

I stared at her. "You want to check me for bites?"

"That's okay," Rick waved his hand in a "settle-down" motion. "If she says she's not bit-"

"Well as long as she's offering, Rick-"

Rick moved to protest, and I put up a hand. "No, it's okay. If it will make you feel better-"

I set down my plate and stood up, shrugging out of my jacket. Painfully I peeled off the thin long-sleeve henley I'd been wearing for too many days, leaving only my white cami and bra beneath.

A low hiss escaped Andrea.

"Oh God," said Lori softly, putting a hand to her mouth. The others were suddenly still and silent.

I hadn't known until then how bad I looked. The walker bite from this afternoon was beginning to puff up red and blue on my left forearm, down by my wrist. But I hadn't taken my jacket off in weeks until last night, and then I'd left my shirt on, of course. So I hadn't seen the gruesome array of bruises all over me. Black, blue, purple. The older ones fading to yellow and green. I looked like a kindergartner had taken finger paints to me. I started to feel dizzy.

"Those all walker bites?" Asked Daryl from the other side of the fire. I couldn't read his expression.

I nodded, taking a deep breath to steady my vision. "Yeah, I think so. Except for this one-" I touched a tender purple spot where I'd slammed backward onto a jagged tree stump last week. They were all still staring, so I began to count. I touched a fading knot on my right shoulder. "This one's from the last time we ran out of fuel. There was one in the car my sister was siphoning gas out of." I traced a purple and blue mark on my left bicep. "That one-and these two here- are from a few days ago, when a few of them came up on us sleeping." I could still hear Sarah screaming, her voice echoing in the gas station's dark garage, me throwing my arm into the thing's mouth and shouting at her to run, attacking the other with my axe in my free hand. Funny... I'd been bitten so many times, and never infected. All it took for her was once. Sarah should have been wearing this jacket, not me. I took another deep breath and locked that thought away. "Nearly didn't get out of that. This one-" I turned my arm in the light, seeing for the first time the blue and green half-moon marks on the inside of my right forearm. The place she'd tried to saw into me, before I'd put her back to sleep. I hadn't really believed she could attack me, not until then. I swallowed hard. "I- I can't remember where that one came from."

"Man, I need a jacket like that." Glen said next to Maggie, his voice soft with awe.

"You're a survivor," Andrea said with appreciation as I struggled against my sore muscles back into the stained and stinking shirt. There's really few things in the world less pleasant than having to put on dirty clothes. Or least least there were, before.

"That's just living," I replied, looking at Daryl. He met my eyes, then shook his head and looked away.

"Livin' sounds pretty good to me, girl. Given the alternative." He said, lifting a bottle of Sprite-now refilled with water-to his mouth.

_If you say so._

I had one arm in my jacket when I heard Hershel up on the ridge. "Walker!" He pointed behind me, and I nearly fell backward into the fire as I whirled, catching only a blurry glimpse of the figure lumbering out of the bush and through the ruined doorway of the stone wall behind me before a crossbow bolt stood out of its eye. It fell forward at my feet.

"Ridiculous my ass," Daryl muttered as he approached the stinking form to retrieve the bolt. "That's twice," he said, jerking his chin toward me. I avoided his eyes, feeling guilty for having been so nasty earlier. Abrasive, angry, and anti-social as he was, Daryl was right-he'd saved my life twice today.

"OhmyGod! Rick!" Lori screamed from the far side of the fire, clutching at Carl and dragging him to his feet.

"No! Beth!" Hershel shouted from the ridge, climbing down at a reckless pace. Another walker had appeared out of the trees just behind Lori, lurching to where she'd just been with Carl, where Beth was still sitting. The next moment Beth was on the ground, screaming wildly under the rotting jaws, trying to keep them from her face. Rick fired his pistol straight through its head, blood and green-grey tissue exploding everywhere. And Beth was still screaming.

"Okay, it's okay," Lori said, pulling the dead walker off the hysterical girl. "He didn't get you. You're okay, Beth." The others moved to help her, and Hershel knelt down next to her, helping her up onto her knees. She seemed to be hyperventilating. She was covered in blood, a long trail of splatter going from her eyebrow to her chin. She fell forward onto her hands, trying to breathe.

I stood frozen watching her, feeling like I was reliving the first moments of a familiar nightmare. A second later my stomach sank. As I watched her cough, Hershel's hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her, I saw a big gob of red saliva hit the ground.

"You okay, Hannah?" Andrea asked, seeing the look on my face.

"Sure," I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the red spot on the ground. Didn't they know? "It's just..."

"What?" Daryl asked, eyes narrowed in that measuring look of his. I was coming to hate that look.

They didn't know.

I closed my eyes. "Nothing," I said, swallowing and turning away. "Just... just bad memories."

"We all got those," said Glen, holding onto Maggie, both of them watching Hershel trying to calm Beth.

"Yeah," I said, turning toward the my car. I needed a minute by myself, danger or no. "Yeah we do."

The others started moving to drag the bodies away from the campsite. Except for Daryl, whose eyes followed me into the darkness.


	6. Rabies

_Hey, please give me some feedback. I'm writing in the dark. _

_I still don't own these guys. _

* * *

Lori was wrapped around Carl on the ground, slowly rocking and staring blankly into the fire. I looked up toward the ridge where Rick had assumed guard duty, and saw him staring back down at them. I sighed and climbed to my feet. It wasn't like I was going to sleep anyway. Not after that.

"Hey, why don't you let me take first watch," I said to him, offering to take the rifle. I could see the struggle on his face between his cop instinct telling him not to let a 26-year-old girl take on guard duty over the camp war with his desire to be with his wife and son.

"No, you should get some rest." He was like a broken record with that line.

"Come on, Rick. I think I've proved myself capable. And they need you." I nodded toward his family below. "Besides, who knows how much time you have left with them." I hoped that wasn't too cruel in its bluntness, but truer words were never spoken, and he knew it. It was all over his face. I held out my hands for the gun again.

He nodded, looking at the ground, and then back up at me. "I'll be up in an hour or two. Just yell if you need us." He passed me the gun. "You know how to use that?"

I smiled, pulling back the bolt to check the breech for a round. It was loaded. "Hawkeye, right?" I asked, sliding the bolt back into place. He nodded.

"My dad was a marine. He was crazy about the shooting range. I'll be okay."

As I watched Lori wrap her arms around Rick in the camp below, I felt a kernel of warmth spread in my stomach. It felt good to do something for someone else. And despite everything, it gave me hope to see his family together, even if it pained me simultaneously, remembering that my own was dead. I envied Lori, that she could sleep in her husband's arms. Did he make her feel safe? If only for moments at at time? I tried to remember what that felt like. Safe. Was there any safe place left in any corner of this purgatory?

And then I found myself wondering if Rick wasn't as crazy as I had first thought. Was it possible? Could we move into that prison and fortify? Start some kind of colony? Maybe... maybe even ride this thing out?

My eyes moved to where Beth lay, curled up next to Hershel on the ground. Females were terribly precious in endangered populations, I knew. One female can only reproduce so many times. You need a lot of them to stabilize a group.

I shook my head. _He's got you dreaming, you stupid girl_. This wasn't an endangered species. We were an extinct one; it was just that some of us hadn't gotten the memo yet.

I was staring out at the water again when I sensed, rather than heard, movement beside me.

"You gonna tell me what that was about?" Daryl asked from the darkness. Damn he was quiet.

"What," I said, not moving my gaze. The moon was a little bigger tonight, shimmering in the black water.

"You were starin' at Beth like she was one of them," Daryl said, moving toward me and shifting his crossbow to his shoulder.

I shrugged. "Just scared, I guess."

"Don't gimme that shit, girl. I see right through you."

"Yeah, I guess you do, don't you." I said, finally turning toward him, remembering how fast he'd picked up on my death wish. I was smiling, but there was no joy in my face. We just stood like that for a moment, studying each other in the moonlight. I was exhausted. Physically, sure, it had been a long day, but I was emotionally wasted. A small, bone-weary animal finally caught in the jaws of the sleepless, patient predator, utterly spent, ready to surrender. I had no more fight left in me to hold my walls.

Perhaps Daryl, being a hunter himself, recognized that look, that exhausted submission, because the next moment, his face softened.

"You can't keep up like this. You know that, dontcha?"

"Like what? Maintaining a pulse?" I smiled again, an empty, painful thing.

"Whatever's happened to you. It's eatin' you alive," he said, stepping toward me.

"Poor choice of words, Daryl." I said, turning back to the water.

"Dammit girl-you know what I mean. You're gonna have to let somebody in. Gonna have tell someone what's happened to you."

"That's funny, coming from you. You're a lone wolf, aren't you?" But part of me knew he was right. My nerves were shot. I hadn't grieved for my parents, or Kevin, or Amanda. And I could scarcely think about my sister. I was just this side of breaking-I could feel it in my heart, in my bones. But talking about it might just speed that process up. And until I knew whether I wanted to live in this brutal new world, that wasn't an option. I had to stay as strong as I could for as long as I could.

A sudden wild ache ripped through me. Daryl was so strong. He was fast. He had already saved my neck twice today. And despite his harsh manner, he seemed to be a pretty decent human being. But most importantly, he seemed to believe that we could get through this.

I wondered if I could feel safe again, even for a moment, wrapped in his arms.

I looked over at him. When I first saw him I thought he had a kind of mean look about him. But the meanness just seemed like masculinity, now. For a moment I allowed myself to imagine burying my face in his chest, the smell of him-I bet he smelled of strength-the feel of those strong arms around me. I was looking at the curve of his bicep when he turned back toward me.

"What?"

My face got hot. I shrugged and turned back toward the water. I was dreaming again. There was no safety in the end times, as he'd called it. Not even an illusion of it in which to bury my face. And there sure as hell wasn't room for love.

He was quiet for awhile. Maybe he would leave me alone. But he didn't move, not for several minutes. Finally I realized he was going to wait me out. I had to say something.

"I'm sure there's nothing I've been through that you all haven't seen yourselves. You all seem to be coping." I said finally, wishing he would go away.

"Maybe. But what we been through, we all seen together. Makes a difference."

I felt something inside me splintering. _No. Not now._

Instead I answered his first question.

"Beth's infected."

He shifted beside me. "What do you mean?"

"The blood. I think she swallowed walker blood. She's infected."

He shifted again, anxious. "Hey, I dunno how to say this," he said, running a hand through his hair, "but we're all of us infected. Some batshit kamikaze scientist back at the CDC told us."

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut against the warm sea threatening to overflow them.

"No. I know. I know what you mean. If you die you come back. As one of them. I know that. We -I- killed a couple of guys back in South Carolina. Shot them. And they turned. That's not what I mean."

"You say you killed some people?" He looked at me askance.

"It wasn't by choice, okay? I was trying to protect my sister." Tried and failed. Twice.

He nodded at the ground.

"Anyway, that's not what I'm talking about. If you... getting blood in your system, or tissue, or whatever- it affects you kind of like-" I groped for an analogy. "Like rabies."

My eyes swept the trees, trying to get a better grip on myself. After a moment he got impatient.

"You gonna elaborate on that?"

I took a deep breath. "At first it's not so noticeable. The person just seems kind of frustrated all the time. But then it starts to make you crazy. You get more violent. Irrational. Imagining things, maybe. Totally incapable of being reasoned with. Then maybe you kill somebody, or try to. If you let it go long enough, you get just absolutely... feral. And... and someone has to put you down." I closed my eyes again, trying not to remember that. "The ones who've been infected like that for a long time-who have gotten blood in their system-they come right back as walkers. A few minutes, maybe less. The rest of us- it may take hours. That's how you know."

"You know this first-hand," he said. It wasn't a question.

I nodded. "My best friend Amanda. She got some in her mouth and eyes before we ever left D.C. I worried about it, of course. Didn't know how something so contagious wouldn't be transmitted by blood. And then there were others, too."

"Others. Thought you said it was just the four o' you."

"The people we met in South Carolina just after I- after Amanda died. They had the same thing with a couple guys in their group."

"Yeah," said Daryl, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder and squatting down, following my gaze toward the trees on the far side of the reservoir, "What you're describing- it's startin' to sound real familiar."


	7. A New Woman

_Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it. _

_ Luvdamon- I think you're right about Daryl. I've known plenty of whip-smart guys who haven't had the benefit of a formal education, and I've been shamed more than once by my surprise at their insight and inclination to read pretty widely on their own. Daryl reminds me a lot of them. A rough accent does not equal stupidity, not by a long shot. _

* * *

The next day I let the guys leave me at camp while they worked on clearing out more of the prison. I wasn't anxious to get back there. Daryl was going to talk to Rick about what I'd told him about Beth being infected; I sure as hell didn't have the heart to tell Hershel.

After cleaning up the remains of breakfast, I began to gather kindling for the fire that night. Lori approached me as walked toward the makeshift pit, hands in her back pockets.

"Hey, Hannah. We're about to get started on the laundry. You have any clothes other than those?" She eyed my filthy jeans and shirt.

"Back in the car. Most of it's pretty bad, though. Stains and stuff."

"Why don't you grab it? I think Andrea has something you can borrow in the meantime."

"Ah... is that cool with her?" Andrea had left for the prison with the men almost an hour ago.

"She's the one who suggested it," Lori said over her shoulder, headed up to the water.

A few minutes later I dropped a small bundle of clothes on the ground by the reservoir. It was just about all I had left of my life. I've never been terribly materialistic, but there was something kind of pathetic about that wad of dirty laundry.

I wondered if it had been Sarah here today, instead of me, would she have had a better outlook? She had always been so positive, all her life. "My silver-lining Sarah," our mother used to tease her.

"Okay?"

"What?" I looked down at where Maggie was kneeling beside Beth by the water, working on Glen's shirt with soap and a bristle brush. She grinned.

"I said we got this. Lori wants you down by the fire pit."

I smiled. "Thanks, Maggie. Thanks a lot." I nodded to Hershel as I passed him where he stood guard on the ridge between the camp and the reservoir, Rick's rifle in his hands. I tried not to think about Beth.

Lori had somehow rigged up a clothesline in the corner of the ruined structure that was our camp. She was pinning a sheet over it as I approached. It looked kind of like a partition, or a screen.

"So what's all this?"

"Hannah, honey, don't take this the wrong way, but how long has it been since you've had a chance to wash your hair?"

An hour later, clean for the first time in weeks, I sat on the log by the fire pit while Lori worked on my hair with a brush and scissors. Although a little embarrassed that everyone had seemed to notice my state of cleanliness (or lack thereof), I was relieved Lori hadn't expected me to bathe in the reservoir. God only knew what was under that water, or what it was contaminated with. I wasn't even very excited about my clothes getting soaked in it, though I wasn't about to object.

But scrubbing off behind the sheet with the boiled bucket of water was nerve-wracking. I felt so vulnerable soaping up in the open air, the thin draped fabric behind me the only barrier between my nakedness and and the great big world of rancid walking death that I kept imagining just on the other side. I got finished as quickly I could, spending most of the time staring at where my little tomahawk lay by my right foot as I sloughed off weeks of grime.

But my hair was hopeless. Unwashed or brushed for weeks, it was matted and impossible to untangle. When Lori saw me emerge from behind the sheet, clean and dressed in Andrea's jeans and t-shirt, but despondent under the tangled yellow pelt of a wild animal, she pointed to the log with the authority only mothers can exude, and went to work with her brush. In the end she had to cut several of the knots out, promising to add some layers so that it didn't look like I'd been attacked with a garden shears.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" I asked as she snipped behind me.

"Are you kidding?" She asked back. "If it hadn't been for you, my son would have gone hungry these last two days. And I don't know if you saw Rick this morning, but it's the happiest I've seen him in weeks. He really believes he can turn that prison into a livable space for us, somewhere we can settle. He might be right, it's got everything we'd need-solid walls, kitchen, maybe even a library and medical facilities. And we wouldn't have known about it, if not for you, either. You've given him hope. And I just wanted to thank you for that."

She peeked around the side of my face and smiled at me, before going back to cutting.

The absurd irony that I had inspired someone to keep on hoping for a light at the end of this black tunnel into the ninth circle was not lost on me, but I couldn't help feeling moved. A flush crept up into my cheeks.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I listened to Lori and Carl doing sums out of an old textbook while I helped Maggie and Beth hang up the wash, enjoying the feel of my clean hair moving loose around my shoulders. Lori had done a pretty god job, actually- she'd showed me my wavering reflection in the moving water of the reservoir, and though I couldn't tell for sure in the rippling water, it seemed I looked a new woman. I realized that all the time I'd spent in the sunshine lately had done wonders for my complexion, and the soap and water hadn't hurt, either. I almost looked like the same girl I'd been a few months ago. It's amazing what clean clothes and a bath can do for your constitution.

As we worked later on I tried to keep an eye on Beth, asking her questions about the farm where she'd grown up and her life before. But it was Maggie who seemed to be jumpy and out of sorts. She hadn't wanted Glen to leave with the men, but they'd insisted I hang back today, and Glen had taken my place on the prison team. I felt a pang of guilt about that, though I also couldn't help feeling a little proud that Rick had felt me competent enough to leave as a protector in Glen's stead.

"So where'd you learn to use that thing, anyway?" Maggie asked as we hung the wet clothes, nodding toward the little hatchet sticking out of my boot.

"My dad was from Kentucky. When he was growing up they used to have tomahawk throwing competitions in the summer," I said. "When we went to visit my grandparents at their farm one summer-when I was about ten, I think-he took me out into the pasture and taught me. I got this one for my birthday a few years later. It's pretty easy, actually, though I don't like to throw it unless I'm sure I'll get it back pretty quick. Takes your best weapon out of your hands."

She nodded, chewing on her lip as she hung up a pair of Glen's jeans.

"Hey, he's going to be okay," I said, turning toward her. "I bet they'll be back before too much longer." She shot me a pained smile.

"Right."

But I felt a wave of relief when we heard the pickup engine a few minutes later. Maggie ran toward the sound as I continued to hang up the last of the damp clothes. When I turned around she was already wrapped around Glen, and Rick was grinning, carrying a bundle of grey prison blankets under his arm, Andrea, T-Dog, and Daryl following behind him.

"I think we'll be able to move over there tomorrow," he said, giving Carl a hug as Andrea and T-Dog helped themselves to boiled drinking water by the fire pit. "We got a whole block of the building cleared, and we can secure the doors until the rest is done."

"That's great," Lori said, closing the old math textbook and scooping up the pencils. She moved to where Rick was standing and kissed him. "Thank you."

It was then that I noticed Daryl had stopped moving and was staring at me. His crossbow hung from his hand against his calf, and he had the strangest expression on his face.

"What?" I said, whirling behind me, sure there was a walker at my back.

When he didn't answer Andrea moved forward and squeezed my arm. "You look great, Hannah. That's all." I tried not to wince where her fingers pressed into my bruises.

"Thanks for the clothes, Andrea. I'll give them back as soon as mine are dry."

"Don't worry about it," she said. She sat down and began disassembling her pistol.

I glanced back toward Daryl, but he'd already moved off into the trees.


	8. Apologies

"Hey, I forgot to tell you yesterday. I fixed your car." Glen was washing up in the bucket of boiled water while I sat cleaning my mom's .38 on the log next to Andrea.

My head came up. "You fixed it? You mean _fixed it_, fixed it?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so."

"Holy crap, Glen. Thanks. Ah... what was wrong with it?"

"You were out of gas," he said, one corner of his mouth turning up into a smile that looked a lot like a smirk.

T-Dog chuckled. I scowled at him. He shot Glen an amused look I had seen more than once on my ex (no, dead) boyfriend's face when I had struggled with his manual transmission. Something having to do with the technical limitations of women. I ignored it.

"You wanna take a little ride?" I asked Andrea quietly, after he'd moved away.

"You think that's a good idea?" Glen looked from me to Andrea and back again.

She looked over at me, her eyebrows up. "What did you have in mind?"

Two hours later we were pulling up back at camp, the trunk of the Mazda loaded with hot beer, a carton of Camel Turkish Silvers, enough nuts and beef jerky to supply a cattle drive, a Glock, a Marlin 1894 .44, a Colt .45, a Ruger Blackhawk, and a shitload of ammo. Plus about three pounds of stale candy bars. We were in excellent spirits. We'd backtracked up the road to a convenience store attached to a gun shop (only in Georgia, folks) that I hadn't had the balls to enter after dark the night I had broken down only yards away from Rick's camp.

We hadn't encountered a single walker. It was like Christmas.

Both had been looted, of course. The barred windows of the gun shop hadn't kept the needy out: the door had been run down, seemingly with a steamroller. But we'd found plenty odds and ends to make it worth our while, and enough ammo to keep us blowing away the dead until next Easter. Whenever that was. I'd guessed it was currently late August; Andrea thought it was mid-September. I felt a kinship with this woman: Lori had told me she'd lost her sister, and I'd gathered from Daryl that she'd had the same existential conflict about suicide I'd been going through. I'd wanted to ask her what had made her want to live, but didn't have the nerve.

"I'll never forget your face when you saw that Ruger," I said smiling, rounding the last curve toward camp.

"I didn't see it," she said, grinning in the passenger seat. "I was in the next isle. I thought you said you'd found a _luger_."

We were still laughing when I cut the engine. As we shut the doors the rest of the camp rushed us. Rick was boiling.

"Are you crazy?!" He shouted, grabbing Andrea by the arm. "You disappear without telling anyone? What the hell was worth your lives?"

"Back off!" She growled back before he was through talking, jerking her arm from his grip.

"Didn't you tell them where we went?" I looked to where Glen was standing, his hands in his pockets.

"Well yeah, but it didn't really help."

"We're only strong because we stick together," Rick said looking down, his thumbs hooked into his belt. He was such a cop. "You can't go sneaking off like that-"

"Relax, Rick," I said, pulling the trunk lock beneath the dash with a grin and circling around to the back. "It's your birthday." I pulled a plastic shopping bag out of the trunk, so heavy with ammo one of the handles snapped in my hand, spilling boxes of bullets on the pavement before I could catch it.

"Holy shit." At least T-Dog was appreciative.

There was a moment of awed silence.

"What the hell, people!" Spat Daryl finally. I looked over to find him, behind the others, draped with dead animals on a filthy string. A rabbit, three squirrels, and a rodent I couldn't name and would no sooner eat. "Y'all nearly went after them girls, didn't even know where they went. An' now you're gonna thank them like they're fuckin' Santa?"

"As I recall, you were the first to volunteer, Daryl," Lori said softly.

"Yeah, and I ain't thankin' them to get me killed, neither," he snarled. I met his eyes in surprise and found fury simmering there. Daryl was going to risk his life to come after us?

I wanted to be annoyed but I couldn't find it in me. He'd been the first to volunteer, Lori said. That strange feeling began to well up inside me again. I took in his ragged sleeveless shirt, the archaic weapon perennially in his hand, his tousled hair, the angular, angry face. He was all man. Braver and stronger than any I'd ever been with, I felt sure. He had been about to come after us. _He would always come for you, if..._ I shoved the thought away. What was I thinking?

"What the hell is that thing, anyway?" I asked instead, nodding toward the curled-up dead thing on his chest. "Is that the chupacabra I keep hearing so much about?"

Someone repressed a snicker. I thought it was Glen.

"There's only so much canned stolen shit a man can stomach," he said, looking me dead in the eyes. "Bout time someone put something on the table you gotta work to get."

Ouch.

"Hey, that 'stolen canned shit' has kept you fed for three days, Daryl," Andrea said to his back as he walked away. Thanks, Andrea.

"Not no more. Gonna roast me some good ole' fashioned squirrel tonight," he shot back, disappearing behind the ruined wall to clean his kill.

After Andrea and I had apologized for sneaking away, the ammunition was distributed, and the guns passed around and appropriately appreciated. Rick seemed to forgive us for the scare, and in fact seemed to be in a great mood, telling Lori and Carl all about the structure and layout of the prison. Something about his demeanor didn't feel right, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was until we were about to sit down for dinner and Maggie knocked over a giant can of peaches. I watched the syrup spread into the dirt in dismay. I'd been looking forward to that, and it was the only can I'd had. But Beth exploded at her.

"Dammit, Maggie! Now we're going to have ants all over the place, on top of everything else!" She slammed down the unopened can she'd been carrying and started picking peach wedges out of the dirt. "It's not like there's an endless supply of this stuff, either," she fumed at the ground.

Maggie look startled. "I'm... I'm sorry, Beth. I guess I just wasn't paying attention."

"Yeah, well you should. You already put a hole in my shirt beating it against that damn rock this morning. Is there anything else you want to destroy while you're at it?"

Hershel put a steading hand on Beth's shoulder. "It was an accident, Beth," he said slowly.

Beth jerked up, eyes blazing. "Is that supposed to make it okay? Well it doesn't. No," she said as Hershel reached out for her again. "Just leave me alone." She stormed off up the ridge.

"What was that about?" Lori said after a moment of stunned silence.

I thought I knew. Buy as I looked around at the circle of blank faces, I saw that Rick look just as surprised as anyone else.

Daryl hadn't told him. I looked toward where he sat, skewering a parcel of rodent meat onto a stick, but he didn't look up.

I spent most of dinner wondering why Daryl hadn't told Rick about Beth. Maybe he hadn't gotten a chance. But that didn't seem like Daryl. When he wanted to do a thing, he went on and did it. Had he been reluctant to spoil Rick's optimism? That didn't seem like him, either. He didn't have any problem putting me in my place, at least.

When the remains of dinner had been cleared away and everyone began to settle in, talking quietly in pairs or threes around the fire, I climbed the ridge where Daryl had taken first watch, leaning against a tree and smoking one of the pillaged cigarettes.

"Hey," I said as I approached, wrapping my arms around myself, though the night was warm. "I uh... I was just wondering why you didn't tell Rick about Beth today. You said you were going to."

"Don't know there's anythin' to tell," he said, looking away.

"What?" The possibility that he might not have found me credible hadn't occurred to me. It stung. "You mean you don't believe me? Didn't you see her go off on Maggie over nothing earlier? That doesn't even make you suspicious?"

"What I seen is a girl get mad. Girls get mad." He shrugged.

"And what about my friend Amanda? And the guys I told you about on the way here?"

He gave me a hard look. "I ain't seen _them_ at all. All I know's what you told me." He pulled at the cigarette.

"Are you saying you think I lied to you? Or you think I would just kill people, if there were any other way?" I looked at my feet, kicking the dirt. "You think I just murdered them? Or that I'm just crazy?" I wasn't sure I wanted an answer to that one.

"Naw, I jus' think you're a first-class moron, an' you proved it by takin' off all on your own today like you thought you was G.I. fuckin' Jane. You even think at all before you did that?"

That was a big gear shift. I thought we were talking about being infected.

"What?" I must have looked blank.

"You coulda gotten yourself killed. An' everyone who woulda come lookin' for ya, too."

"Daryl, nothing happened." I spread my hands.

"Oh, you knew that 'fore you went, huh? You a fuckin' psychic too, now?" His accent seemed to get thicker as he got worked up.

I sighed. He was really overreacting.

"Look, nothing happened. We didn't see even one of those things. Besides, I already apologized to Rick..."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Rick ain't the only one here, ya know!" A couple of faces below turned up toward the sound of his raised voice. He turned away toward the water.

I stared at his back, furiously trying to work out why he was so angry.

Was he pissed that he almost risked his neck for a stupid girl? Was he jealous that we'd been the ones to find the cache of guns, and not him? Or had he been worried about me?

When he turned back, the terrible pain in his face gave me the answer. He hadn't just been worried; he had been terrified. Terrified that we'd die, that we wouldn't ever come back. That _I_ wouldn't ever come back.

I felt an irrepressible urge to go to him. I wanted to close the short distance between us, wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him like I'd never kissed anyone before, tell him how sorry I was, that I would never put him through that again, that I was his. I wanted him to know how much I admired his strength, his fiery will to live, and his willingness to put his life in jeopardy for someone he cared about despite it.

But I was frozen where I stood.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was the only part of my absurd fantasy I could allow out.

He didn't respond. His eyes were still locked on mine, the plaintive pain in his face making his feelings as clear as if he had declared them aloud. Seconds passed between us in the gathering dark.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, backing away. The words meant something entirely different, this time.


	9. Promises

_I don't own Walking dead or these characters. _

_Please review! Let me know how I'm doing. Any feedback would be appreciated, especially constructive criticism. Thanks! _

* * *

I was tearing through the trees, my tomahawk in my right hand, the gun in my left. I could hardly see where I was going. There were walkers somewhere behind me, at least three of them, but I thought I had lost them. I had been lost myself, for hours, walking around in circles and calling out into into the fading twilight.

We'd gotten separated off the narrow country road when the herd passed. I had been on the far side of the road, with no hope of crossing back until they were gone. Since then I had screamed my throat raw, just crying and shouting her name, drawing the dead with my panic.

And then I'd heard it: a distant scream of pain. I took off like a shot.

The dead foliage snapped and crunched beneath my feet as I ran, the stitch in my side lighting my lungs on fire. _Just keep screaming_, I begged silently. _Show me where you are. Don't die. I'm coming._

But if she was screaming, I knew I wasn't going to make it. Sarah was only nineteen, and a gentle, impractical girl, not the tough tomboy I was. She could hardly defend herself, and the screams just went on and on.

The silhouette of a narrow figure emerged from the gloom ahead. I slowed. This wasn't right.

As I moved through the trees the figure came into focus. A tailored yellow dress, stained with blood at the collar and the hem, an oval gold locket around her neck. Dark cropped hair floated around around her sweet, frail features, accusation blistering her fevered face.

It was only then I knew I was dreaming. I had watched my mother die in the bedroom of the three-story townhouse she and father had shared for going on thirty years in Washington. So I knew she couldn't be here, in the woods outside of Charleston, South Carolina.

"_Promise me,_" She said, her eyes boring into my soul, dark blood leaking from the wound in her neck in a slow stream. "_Promise me, I asked. Protect her. The only thing I asked of you.."_

Somewhere in the distance Sarah screamed again. I took off running toward the sound, leaving my mother's shade behind me.

"_You failed me, Hannah_," her voice whispered to me in the darkness as I tore through the underbrush. "_You broke your promise to me as I lay dying. You failed us all."_

It seemed that the darkness and the fear would go on forever, as it so often seems to in nightmares. _No,_ I thought through the panic. _This time I'm going to save you. I will kill them all. They won't touch you._ Then the trees broke, and I was standing in the backyard of a dilapidated old ranch-style house, on the outskirts of a dated low-rent housing development.

I saw them then, though they were too busy to see me. Five of them, surrounding a weathered picnic table next to a rusted swing set. The gear piled against the house and the small fire told me they'd made their camp here.

But what I saw was Sarah. Sarah, bent over the table like a piece of meat, her jeans caught around her ankles, clawing at the splintered wood of the table and screaming like an animal.

My gun was loaded, the last of my ammunition seeming to jangle loud as bells in my cargo pants pocket as I tried to creep close enough to take a clean shot.

"I'm telling you man, stop this now," One of them was saying. "She's had enough. Just let her go."

"Shut the fuck up or leave, Andy," another said, watching the man who was behind my sister, a

.45 dangling from his hand.

I was only ten paces away when they caught my movement.

"Hey! Behind you!" A third said, and like a pack of dogs protecting a kill, they formed a knot in front of Sarah in a second.

"Oh ho we got a live one here!" It was the one who'd told Andy to shut the fuck up, looking at the gun still slack at my side, and grinning. He didn't even bother to raise his pistol. At least the rest of them had the sense to look alarmed. "You gonna shoot me, princess?"

"No. Him first."

Quick as a blink, I aimed at the man trying to zip his jeans and fired. I'd aimed for the groin but got him in the gut. Then I got Shut the Fuck Up in the forehead.

The knot broke.

"Hey, I tried to stop them," The first said, holding up his hands. He said something else after that, but I could hardly hear him over the screeching agony of the gut-shot man writhing on the ground. Not that I was listening. I was watching Sarah, hardly able to breathe through her sobs, yanking up her pants in the space between the remaining three men. Then her sobbing ceased, and she straightened slowly, far too slowly.

"Why did you let this happen to me, Hannah?" Her voice had taken on a surreal tenor. "You did this. I needed you, and you weren't there. You promised to protect me. You _promised_, Hannah." As I watched, her eyes melted into the milky white stare of a walker, and her skin began to rot. She staggered forward toward me over the body of the man who'd raped her, her lifeless arms out before her, reaching for me. "_You promised._"

"Hey, hey. Hey, Hannah, wake up." I opened my eyes to see Daryl's face hovering above me in the darkness. I had somehow rolled a foot or so away from where I had folded a prison blanket make a pillow, and had wedged myself into the corner of the crumbling stone wall around the camp.

"You okay? You was havin' one bitch of a nightmare. Thought if I didn't come down you'd wake the whole place."

Like a six-year-old, I threw my arms around his neck and buried my face against the hollow of his collarbone.

"Oh hey. Hey, uh... it's okay." His crossbow slipped to the ground as he awkwardly wrapped his arms around me. We sat like that for a moment, him kneeling beside me as tears slipped down my face and dampened his shoulder, the musky smell of him calming me slowly. He did smell of strength, just as I'd imagined.

After a minute, the the terrible fog of the nightmare had receded enough to bring me back into myself. I drew back, horrified at having made such a display.

"I'm- I'm sorry," I stammered, wiping the embarrassing wetness from my face.

"S'okay," He said quietly, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. The gentleness of the gesture unnerved me. "Jus' good to see you actin' like a normal person, 'stead of the bad-ass bitch you always tryin' to pretend you are."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I had never been this close to him before, and I saw now that his eyes weren't exactly blue, but the bright blue-green of the caribbean sea. I could fall into those eyes forever, and he would never let me drown. And as I watched, the the light in his eyes began to change. Concern melted into something else - a dark hunger that reached in and ignited something within me.

I wanted him. It was like a wave crashing into me. It was more than just wanting to feel safe. More than an escape from the constant, crushing pain of everything I'd witnessed and experienced in the last two months. I wanted him, his strength, his faith in our survival that he hid behind a scathing skepticism, his sharp and unforgiving insight. And I wanted his rough, calloused hands on me, exploring me, holding me. I wanted him to be mine.

It shook me to my core. Wanting meant weakness; it was a fissure in the rock-hard armor I'd built so carefully for myself. Wanting led to loving, and loving would open that fissure into a yawning chasm through which pain could pour. And I knew, as sure as an animal who wanders away from the pack when death's shadow spills over it, that I could not survive that kind of pain. I was barely clinging to my sanity as it was.

I dropped my gaze, pulling away a fraction.

Anger flickered in his eyes as he felt my withdrawal. The next moment he leaned in close, his hand slipping up to the nape of my neck, his fingers entwining in my hair to trap me. "No," he whispered hoarsely. "You don't get to do that again." He pulled me to him.

The kiss felt like fire. My body was betraying me; every muscle and cell sang with the electricity of his mouth pressed against mine, the rough switch of his tongue drawing my own into a feverish urgency. Against my will my arms were again around him, my hands twisting into his hair, knotting into the cloth of his shirt into my fist, pulling him against me, my need quickly turning into a deep, thudding pulse that rocked my to my center. For a moment I wanted nothing more than him, nothing more than to live, live in this world of pain and death and sorrow, as long as it meant I could keep him.

And then I broke away. For a second I sat silent, trying to deny what what just happened, and willing my heart to slow. When I was finally in command of myself again, my eyes were cold and my voice so icy I hardly recognized it.

"Don't you ever do that again, Daryl Dixon" I said, summoning all the loathing I could muster. "Or I swear to God, I'll put one of your own arrows through your throat." I threw myself to the ground and turned away from him, staring at the stone wall in the darkness.


End file.
